WHO IS JEALOV?
I am Jealov. You are Jealov.
We are Jealov. This is Jealov.

Jealov is reluctant to tell you much about itself. Its members say they’re travelers from Belgium, but that’s about all they’re willing to share. Their press photos are uniformly blurry, their videos feature people who are definitely not in the group, and their Youtube site explains itself cryptically: “I am Jealov. You are Jealov. We are Jealov. This is Jealov.”

The group’s facelessness is a perfect visual manifestation of its hazy, subconscious approach. Jealov cultivates its sound gradually, developing it from abstract fragments into concrete landscapes combining fragments from memories of musical past, travels around the world, and the air itself. The collective has applied this approach to its dual debuts for Mush Records - Framework, a foundation-building EP of original material, and Translations, a free bootleg EP of skewed Top 40 hits.

By most indications, Jealov is anchored by a core of three members - Yann-Alex Janssens, Rick Roels, and Mathieu Seynaeve - who augment their music with contributions from their friends around Brussels. Though Yann and Mathieu knew each other in what they call a “lost childhood,” the group’s members became friends while attending university in in the city. Jealov was conceived on a surfing vacation, which partially explains the group’s aesthetic allusions to the “naive, sunny sounds” coming from the halfway-across-the-world Southern California beat scene.

In addition to writing music together, they began DJing, taking pictures, and making videos. These art forms are all interrelated, and Jealov connects them in order to craft themselves holistically. According to the group, “We haven’t really mastered one of them in particular, so combining them works great for us.” No single member helms Jealov, and each adds something essential: “little explosions of ideas,” from Matthieu, “mathematical mindedness” from Yann, and “photographic skills” from Rick.

As these pieces coexist and become accentuated within Jealov, they give substance to its purposeful anonymity. In the same way that Jealov as an entity is a hodgepodge of its members’ talents, the collective’s sound is an amalgamation of vibrations and influences from around the world. In addition to the aforementioned California connection, the group exhibits a pan-Europeanism with shades of the current English post-dub scene.

“Through our music,” Jealov says, “we’re always on the move. Jealov is a way to count the souvenirs. We’re much more between sounds than genre-based. There’s a lot of good music around lately and everybody is a bit confused what to call it. We’re confused about it ourselves.”

This confusion serves the group well. Over the half hour of Framework, Jealov crafts a narrative out of spliced components of psychedelia, underground rap, slacker funk, and teeth-rattling dubstep. On Translations, they turn a melancholy lens on pop hits, exploring echoes of dancefloor nostalgia and childhood idolatry. Though diverse, Jealov’s releases are unified by a simmering and spacious pace, into which each movement unfolds slowly and deliberately. This slumberous speed allows the group to fully explore the worlds it creates and draw attention to individual moments as they disintegrate into each other.